Thunder forward Kevin Durant has come second in the draft and MVP votings, but nobody in the NBA can touch him nowadays when it comes to pitching products - whether it's shoes, video games or soft drinks. He leads our Commercials Rankings and No. 2 (Kobe Bryant) is not even close.

The NBA trade deadline is coming up Thursday afternoon, and Ainge is pursuing multiple deals, big and small. This is one of his favorite times of the year. His rivals throughout the league can sense it. "He's probably the best GM in the game,'' says Daryl Morey, who became GM of the Houston Rockets after working with Ainge at the Celtics. "Look at the roster in '03 when Danny took over, and his ability to win a title five years later -- that transformation is unheard of, I've never seen anything like it. Now you look at the way he's set up the Celtics today, and it's the best I've seen someone go from losing a core to creating lots of future picks and flexibility to turn it around quickly. People don't see it yet because it hasn't turned the corner, but they will see it.'' NBA.com

Analytics. "He was the first GM in basketball to use it for sure,'' says Morey, who worked for both the front office and the business side of the Celtics after helping Grousbeck's ownership group define the financial value of the team. Morey was soon joined by Mike Zarren, a lawyer and Freakonomics-styled data analyst who has risen to become Ainge's assistant GM. "As a former player, you just don't see this -- he is so forward thinking,'' Morey says of Ainge. "Immediately saw the value in the analysis we were doing, and he was able to integrate it into his decision making. He obviously had his own opinions on players. Myself and Mike were working on a draft model, and when the analysis confirmed what Danny believed, it allowed him to be more confident in what he believed in; and when it didn't, he used it to ask more questions -- am I missing something? He went on to quickly understand how to use it.'' NBA.com